Top 40 LOW BUDGET Advertising and Promotion Ideas For Etsy Sellers

Top 40 LOW BUDGET Advertising and Promotion Ideas

I started Beantown Handmade with zero start-up money, so I’ve had to get creative with free advertising strategies over the last two years. Here are my top 40 free (or super cheap) methods of promoting your Etsy shop and attracting more viewers to your products. I’ve collected all my favorite marketing and promotion articles from Handmadeology and across the web and linked to them throughout this list. Some of these we’ve heard a lot about like Facebook and Twitter, others may seem a little out there but could be worth your while. Hopefully there will a few new ideas or new articles here that will help make things happen for you and your shop!

1. Take great photos so your items reach Etsy’s Front Page – this has been the most successful free advertising we’ve had in our two years on Etsy
2. Create Treasuries, Be in Treasuries
3. Make connections with Twitter
4. Make connections with Facebook
5. Post photos of your process on Flickr and participate in Flickr groups, Tumblr is another great blog/photo site
6. Comment on the Etsy blog, The Storque
7. Write your own blog, create meaningful content
8. Comment on other blogs, many blogs will link your name back to your website. When you comment make sure you enter your website in the field that asks for it.
9. Do a giveaway on a blog or website
10. Use all 14 tags to describe your item, use a few unique words/colors/descriptors
11 Offer promo codes on Facebook, Twitter, your blog, etc.
12. Post promo codes to sites like Etsy Saver
13. Include promo codes for returning buyers in your orders
14. Send out a monthly/quarterly shop newsletter with a free site like MailChimp
15. Hand out business cards, take them with you everywhere
16. Participate in a craft show, make sure to hand out business cards or postcards
17. Participate in Etsy Forums/ teams
18. Shop Etsy
19. Use the Etsy favorites and circle features
20. Leave feedback for Etsy purchases and sales
21. Use Google Analytics to analyze existing traffic so you can reach your target audience and keep them in your shop
22. Keep visitors in your shop by Including links to shops sections and other items in your listing descriptions
23. Fill in your country, city and state so people can find you using the Shop Local feature
24. Sign up for the Etsy newsletters so you can stay on top of opportunities, merchandising topics, and current trends
25. Optimize listing descriptions for google search
26. Ship internationally
27. Donate items to charity fundraisers, include a stack of business cards
28. Brand your items with sewn in tags, hang tags, and packaging (especially if you wholesale)
29. Provide awesome service and communication to your existing customers, they’ll tell their friends
30. Find free places to advertise in your local community – put your business cards up in coffee shops, at your salon, gym, or places your customers might frequent
31. Post your items in the Handmadeology Market
32. Optimize your shop’s SEO with backlinks
33. Offer a variety of items at different price points, this will attract a wider range of buyers to your listings
34. Use your own products in public as much as possible (wear them, etc.)
35. Post tutorials on YouTube
36. Collaborate with another Etsian
37. Create a Kaboodle profile
38. Enlist family, friends and trusted clients to help you spread the word about your products. Word of mouth is some of the best advertising out there.
39. List your site in internet directories40. Give out a free trial product – not something we all want to do, but sometimes if you make something great it can pay to let people try it out firsthand

I would love to hear some additional ways you’ve found to creatively promote your shop. Maybe we can reach 100 ideas and make this the most comprehensive list of free handmade marketing tips on the web!

I have done most of these things, and none of it has helped me. I’ve joined teams, donated some items to a rescue organization, Have Facebook and Twitter, Made a couple treasuries, even been in a couple. I bought an expensive camera so I can take better pics. I am a master with Photoshop so I can improve my photos – Hasn’t helped.

Offered to donate items to non-profits (animal rescues/Japan relief) and nothing. Lowered my prices. I use ALL of my tags in my listings. I re-list when I can. Nothing.

I am very frustrated and have given up at this point. I have read many blogs where people have given advice, like above, about how to increase sales. NONE of it has helped me. I’m just wondering what the magic thing is?

I’m at the point where I can’t afford to keep my shop up, and I certainly cannot afford to advertise. Any more ideas I haven’t already tried?

Liz – I promise you this – if you find a blogger with a big following (I’d google blogs geared to dog lovers, for one) and give them an item to review you will get sales from their legions of faithful followers. Some blogs it only costs the donation of an item. It takes a lot of research, but it sounds like you’d be capable. This is what’s kept me going. Best of luck!
Stephanie

I understand that it can be so frustrating to watch others just seem to explode and yet the same tricks don’t seem to have the same effect.

My tip really has nothing to do with marketing or advertising but with you and your vision. Go back to the root of why you love what you do so much–what does that mean for you and where do you want it to take you? Free write about how you want to positively effect others with this.

The values you find might have much more impact than a twitter page or a treasury. Sell from that place, speak from that place, and maybe you will see some changes.

Thanks SOOO much! I feel like I’m going around in circles doing the same thing to get my stuff seen. This has brought on a new dimention to what I’ve currently been doing! Hope it boosts my sales a bit;-) I’ve already done 2 of them! Thanks again!

Glad these were helpful for some of you, I know many are things we hear frequently (twitter, facebook, etc) but I think the articles linked here about them are a worthwhile read so that we do these things with purpose and create meaningful content.

This list and articles are intended to help build an audience for your work with advertising and promotion, not necessarily as a key to instant sales – the real hard work in handmade business is creating an original product people want to buy. There is definitely no magic bullet to success.

Great, thanks so much for reading! The links on words like Twitter and Facebook are to great articles on Handmadeology, Scoutie Girl, Etsy Success, and other great sites that talk about how to most successfully use these resources to generate excitement about your products.
I know lots of people implement these ideas, but using them effectively is important as well. I used twitter for a long time just to post links to my shop until I realized that wasn’t the most effective use of that platform. Sometimes what we say is more important than how many people are listening.
I know there are people out there who have tried other promotional ideas and I’d love to hear about them to add to the list!

I think these methods work great but by far THE most effective way for promotion that has worked for me is renewing items every day. I renew items about 10 times a day one at a time spread across the whole day.. I have 2 shops and done the works but for Babamoon Baby this method combined with good shop SEO, shop pictures and tags works the best and the cost is a lot less than I used to spend on advertising! Best wishes for all of you!

Thanks a million. there were good insghts for me in your tips. One thing I have done is a squidoo lense. it comes up high in the search engines especially in the US. I highly recommend Kaboodle too – great search results. I just finished off 100 backlinks to my website, phew, but it looks like I’ll have to start again for my etsy shop!!

Great tips. I’ve done a lot of them and am thinking about a newsetter. One I didn’t see up there is to put an ad on Craigslist. It’s free and lasts a week before you have to renew. You can include pictures of your items (up to 4)

I love this article. The tips are great. I’ve done a lot of them and am thinking about a newsetter. One I didn’t see up there is to put an ad on Craigslist. It’s free and lasts a week before you have to renew. You can include pictures of your items (up to 4)

Thank you so very much! Not only are these tips wonderful, this article is delightful to read … and encouraging too. I’ve bookmarked it so I can refer to it again and again as I make my way through all 40!

I am reading anything and everything to get my shop going. Even tho I know and use several of the ideas, there is always something new to learn! Thanks for taking time to compile these great tips. And it is always nice to hear from someone who started out like you (no money) and made a sucess!

I came here because of the topic, I can never learn enough and it was great. I printed it out and will review every now and then to make sure I am not missing something. Then seen the little boston terrier…. awww we had one when I was a child (200years ago) and then wife and I had one, they are so sweet. Then seen the leather collar and it was very nice. Thanks for all the info. larry

What great ideas!! I’m 5 months new to all this and I’ve done a few, like FB, Twitter, Blogspot, dot com site. Twice I was selected for a treasury! I’m really not clear on how to create a treasury myself, but I’ll check into that more. Thanks for all the tips, every little bit helps. I’ll “re-tweet” for all my twitter followers!!
~Tammy

Enjoyed the article. I’m checking out Scoutle, a free automated social network for bloggers to help find, promote, connect and rate blogs. I got this tidbit of info from Etsy Storque’s Guide to blogging… http://etsy.me/fGEsMv

So many links to click on and read. I think I need to get a cup of tea… In one of my handmade tree mugs.

Does that count for free advertising?
Ok, what really counts is always to be willing and ready to mention what we make to other people. Have business cards. Even at Craft fairs, when someone says: We just started looking, we’ll be back…
Say: Great, but take my card so you know who you are looking for.
That way, if they don’t make it back, they have your info.

Thanks so much for the list. Helpful & just what I needed. Like others, I’ve done a few off the list, but I’m saving it to use as a TO DO list!
Just wish I had more hours in the day, so I could get to everything on my list!

Anne…thanks for sharing…it is really great to get these tips from someone who is successful and willing to pass them along. Lots of great info!
I have always admired your shop, your well-made items and of course your pups:) and so to see this article written by you is terrific!

Really a great post shared by you with all, i like to appreciate your efforts taken for the same. Also like to have more such from your side and also like to share your blog with all in my networks.
Cheers,
Susan Smith.

thanks so much for your ideas, I have one to add to your list… use the google adwords keyword tool. I’ve been improving my quality points with google this way and landing more on the 1st page for my products. It has started to improve my sales directed through google. thanks for sharing. http://artbychapin.com

I’m with Liz up there, I have done most of these items, except the craft show which is impossible due to my health. I have moderate sales, but nothing great. I am continually trying to get better photos, but at some point, I have to stop here, so that i can concentrate on new items.

I have to ask how great pictures would really help though. I have seen many jewelry sellers with terrible pictures, selling like crazy. And their products are not necessarily that good to start with.

I would love to know what blogs I could try to advertise with. I have tried paid advertising, on a bridal site, but didn’t get any return from it.

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I´m with Liz, in this one, although I have to say that since Etsy has changed it search system, I get more views, hearts and sales. (I know I´m probably the only one who likes it.)
Yes, it is hard work and time consuming to find the right title and tags but it is worth it. Once you get it right you don´t have to re-list that often and get noticed better. Also, you learn soon how it works and how to position your key words.
A good team where sellers support each other and make treasuries also helped a lot.
And lastly, realizing that the market doesn´t necessarily want the products I originally opened my shop with and slowly changing my product line according the needs of the market without giving up my believes had probably helped too.

Thank you for your excellent suggestions. Opened in October and have been trying to read everything I can find (there are so many wonderful articles and suggestions). It is so nice to see that I have done some of the things you are suggesting, and I will be doing more in the future. My festivals are finished for the year so that I can work on my Etsy shop and hopefully build my business. Thank you again.

Great Post! I started at number on on your list and I am in the process of checking each thing off as I work through it. I have already created a flickr, Tumblr, and am in the process of a kaboodle. Great information.
Thanks again!

Thanks for the post. Definitly helps to hear what has and hasn’t worked for other jewelry shops. I’m definitely finding it frustrating to be offering quality hand made authentic, antique, non dyed materials and not be able to express to shoppers the value of each item.

I appreciate this article too! I opened an Etsy shop with the idea of promoting my main website – in the end, I have two great product-based websites now Interestingly enough, there are things I sell all-the-time on my main site and not at all on Etsy; and things that sell on Etsy all-the-time that are not even seen on my main site.

So my added tips are as follows:
–just emphasizing to adapt to your audience (while maintaining your own beliefs, values and vision)
–Don’t be afraid to venture out into other venues, while keeping up with Etsy – especially if you have a great product you just *love* but the current audience isn’t right for it.

I do believe I have a good tip.
I am a Captain for a team.
“The Eclectic Shop Team”

Getting involved with a team or teams seems to help a bunch.You do benefit from them.
It’s a great way to find other and and promote each other.
Thank you for the great tips
Anita Sperohttp://www.etsy.com/shop/AnitaSperoDesign

Great tips! This list will keep me busy for a while. I have done a few and it seams to bring more traffic to my site for a short time. Hope doing more will work for me more long term. I have been on etsy for around 2 months and have had 2 sales now selling my oil paintings, mosaics, and hand painted wine glasses. It is truley exciting trying new ways to get found and seeing some results form doing so. Good luck to all, and thanks for the great info!
Tanyahttp://www.etsy.com/shop/tanyagrub

Liz, I identify with your problem. I have tried most of the ideas on the list. My real friends support me by giving me LIKES but there are no new visitors. I end up marketing my Facebbook page. If it was not for the festivals and fairs I would be selling NOTHING. Unfortunately customers there will not pay enough to recoup costs. Now I have an expensive hobby that needs to move out of the red. Part of the problem is that I am ‘up scale’ and I have come to believe ETSY is not. Good Luck, you are not alone.

Thank you SO much for all you help now and in the passed.
I want to share something with everyone.
I’m a Art Teacher PT so teaching is one thing I love to do.
When I come across a new or even seasoned shop and see they need help or some friedly advise about thier pictures etc
I love to help them in any way I can. I’m not an expert by any means but maybe I can pass on some of what I have learned.
Just like Handmadeology has helped me so
much in the passed.
Smile
Barbara Gene

Thanks for the list. I have done a few need to pursue some others. My sales the first year on etsy were pretty good (or I thought) and I was hoping the second would be even better, but they seem to have stalled, and I keep adding new things. I am trying to promote my FB page but don’t seem to get many likes even though I ask friends to visit. Any clues to get more of this? I hadn’t thought of Craig’s List or advertising in a weekly free news circulation. I would like to get into blogging, but don’t have a clue where to start. Guess I better do some homework. I don’t want to come off as a “poor me”. I am really fine, get lots of good feedback but want to kick it up a notch to where it it more than a hobby, but make a bit of a profit.

Thank you for all of these great tips. I would also add another. Be consistent in your marketing. You can’t just do it for a couple of weeks and then sit back and wait. I have definitely seen an increase in activity from this same time last year and I believe it is because I have been participating in many of the activities you have mentioned on a consistent basis. Love Mail Chimp – such a professional way to communicate with your customers!

I so appreciate all the steps that can be taken to help promote my shop…I have redesigned my shop logo, it is more me now, taken photos so many times I can not count..Everything to get my name out there, I all helps, I just had postcards made up for the up coming winter craft shows that I do…I have also invested in a credit card reader for this season…I can’t believe how many shoppers ask for that last year. Several new things to think about doing, thanks again I live by Handmadeology! June

Have used many of these resources, will try others. Tophatter is another way to get your shop some views. Twitter used to be really great for me and then dropped off. I tried search ads but was blown away when I got the monthly bill! Yikes! I don’t blog but would like to find someone who blogs about recycled clothing.

Thanks for the tips. they all sound great. I am very new to Etsy, and till now I haven’t got any sales.
I am a bit worried about the price point of my items. I see all the shops that are doing really well in Etsy have the average price point of 35 dollars.
could you guys tell me if its better to have items that more affordable to grab the audience to your shop?http://www.LiliDot.etsy.com

Hi, Thanks for this article. This is just what I needed! I am new to online selling – just starting to take pics – this month. I have many of the items on the list ready to go but I’m going to try many more. Also – the ideas about soliciting bloggers is awesome!!! Once my sites are running I’m definitely going to do that! My jewelry is available locally and quite often I hear: “my friend’s brother’s dog’s wife’s child’s nanny in another state would love your stuff – you should sell online!”
I have sold supplies on Etsy and eBay over the years but I’m officially venturing into the indie-handmade sector. I have set up my Etsy shop and bought a domain. I also have a merchant account and Paypal.
I’m a good photographer with a good camera so my first step is taking pictures and getting them loaded. Then I’ll open for business and trek through the list. Thanks again! I love handmadeology and appreciate this list.

Thanks for all these tips! I am trying to find other sites that would promote my jewelry but it is kind of a niche and I really have a hard time finding blogs that just talk about piercing and stretched ears without actually selling some. I will continue to search!

Great ideas and very nice of you to put a list out here. The only I have gotten burned on is shipping internationally, where the customer refuses to pay the custom fee. We have even shipped on the customer’s account and will still get dinged on custom fees. All the other points were great.

This is a great list, and I have it bookmarked! I am slowly starting to get all of these going (twitter, facebook fan page, flickr, instagram, blogspot, tumblr, etc) and this list reminds me to stay on track. What an awesome resource this is!

I do have to second the international shipping. Be careful to get a feel for what your item will cost to ship before putting a number to it

Great ideas. My jewelry shop is in a saturated market so it’s been a slow start. This is my second year in business and this year I’m focusing on learning all I can about managing the shop properly including promoting and advertising.

A couple of things that you didn’t mention: Pinterest (my etsy shop is one of my Pinterest boards).
I’m testing facebook ads right now – they seem to be about the same cost as etsy ads and google ads. So far it’s helped with facebook likes and etsy views. The jury is still out about whether that will translate to sales.

Thank you so much for the advice you have taken the time to give and for the help your readers have contributed too. I started selling on
Etsy last year but gave up after a lot of work and no sales. Today I opened my shop again and I am determined to make it work this time. I will follow your advice and be a lot more promotion savvy from now on. Many thanks.

Thank you for the article.
I have some friends that started to sell on etsy. It took them almost an year to sell the first item but now they have regular customers. I understood from them that the main/best advertise is done by blogging and, of course, by doing unique things and sharing and caring I started my own store this week, hope I’ll see results

There is a new tip for etsy shop promotion – TreasuryPromo.com
TreasuryPromo is an Etsy treasury exchange network! It is like a big treasury team, but they do not have a limit for the number of treasuries to be made per month. You can create treasuries whenever you want and earn karma points that way! Also you don’t need to notify shops for including them in your treasuries, because if you make treasuries, you will be in treasuries!

I carefully looked all of these, ArtFire and ECoMarket I tried. The others are either very narrowly focused or only for cheap, banal or Kitsch. If I have deal with that stuff to keep the doors open they are better shut.

Hi, i am new in Etsy, thank you for tips!! I create handmade beaded crochet jewellery, so I need marketing tips for showing my OOAK art. Also wanted to suggest to create a profile in http://wanelo.com/ , they let to add products from my etsy profile! so more people can see me!

These are some great tips! I believe that advertising shouldn’t be exclusive to big companies!

One really effective (and cost-effective) way of advertising is using banner advertisements. I think that if you combine nice photos of your products with good text this can help bring more customers in.

To make the banners you can do it yourself either with photoshop (but this takes forever, and if you’re not good at design or computers it makes it nearly impossible) or with banner builders like BannerFlow (www.bannerflow.com) This one is good because you can just upload any images of your products and text and animations. Then you can embed the code onto individual websites (I like to find blogs that offer good advertising rates but also write about products that are similar to my own. eg. if I sell handmade necklaces, I try to find a similar blog). You can also integration tools such as AdRoll or similar, but this is more expensive.

I find that banner ads are good to get some exposure, especially at the start when your shop or blog is new and you want some recognition!

Thanks for sharing with the tips; I’ve tried to add the free internet directory. But I agree with Liz, I did actually tried many these things, but they don’t help. Some people on social media likes my products, this increase bit of the traffic to my shop but they never pay for any. I tried to create treasure list, but no any response from other Etsian, just make me feel cold from the community. I questioned myself are my works not good enough? But many others told me they are good, but why it hardly get a sale? I try not to be so frustrated and carry on, but I don’t know how long I can insist. What’s wrong with my shop?

Great tips! Thanks for sharing this information, but I think as an Etsy seller you should try SocialPilot for promoting your products on Social media. It’s a easy and useful way to promote your products on multiple social media platform. It allows advanced scheduling post with high queue limit so you can easily plan your monthly products promotion by spending just 30 minutes and you can save your lots of time and effort as well.

About Anne Burton

Hi, I’m the creator and owner of Beantown Handmade pet apparel and accessories. I opened up shop on Etsy in November 2008 and have now expanded my business to include an independent website, crafts shows, drop ship and wholesale. Originally from Virginia, I now live in Nebraska with my husband Michael and our two amazing Boston Terriers Lily and Bean. We are big advocates of animal rescue and adoption, and love to get involved with rescue fundraisers whenever and wherever we can. Read more on Bean's Blog

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